The world’s most desirable places to live and work are no longer te major metropolitan areas: they’re remote and at altitude. That’s according to bitcoin miners at least, who are fueling a boom for land and utilities te some of the world’s most scenic regions. They’re not relocating for the breathtaking views, however, but for the cheap hydroelectric that’s fueling their equipments. From Washington to Siberia, mining mania is on the rise.

Cheap Power to the People

The lengths to which people will go to secure the means to mine cryptocurrencies is extraordinaire. Spil the price of bitcoin climbs everzwijn higher, and the number of remaining coins still to be mined diminishes, there’s a digital gold rush ter place which evokes evident comparisons with the original rush for the precious metal that peaked ter 1849. Back then, the invocation wasgoed to “Go west”. For today’s bitcoin miners, it’s more a case of “Go north”, heading out of town to where the hydropower is plentiful.

Antminers: not pretty but they get the job done

Ter the state of Washington, utility companies have bot bombarded with requests from bitcoin miners impatient to tapkast into a meteen source of power. One company ter Grant County has bot inundated with queries according to Chelan PUD’s Managing Director of Customer Utilities, John Stoll. He told Northwest Public Radio :

It seems like every time I go to somebody’s office they’re on the phone with somebody wanting to know, ‘Boy, wij’d sure like a lotsbestemming of power to do some bitcoin mining’.

Utility companies are reacting cautiously, antsy not to waterput extra strain on their current infrastructure, should request for hydro-powered bitcoin mining farms take off. “I think our general manager te one of the latest commission meetings said it best when he said this is unprecedented, the amount of rente wij are observing right now,” said Ryan Holterhoff, who also works for Grant County Public Affairs District. “At this time, wij’re welcoming inquiries, but they’re likely to practice a delay.”

He added: “The total fresh service requests wij have outstanding right now is around 500 megawatts of power, which would represent about an 85 procent increase overheen our current average flow.” Most of thesis come from cryptocurrency companies.

Miners Flock to Douglas County

A number of mining companies have set up base te Douglas County including Salcido Enterprises, which is creating a datacenter close to Wenatchee airport, and Giga Watt which is building a sprawling mining operation ter East Wenatchee. The two firms have budgeted $30 million te total for the projects. Once operational, they’ll be served by power generated by Rocky Reach Dijk which lies seven miles upstream from Wenatchee and generates around 1,300 MW. Seven million people – plus a modest number of cryptocurrency GPUs and ASICs – are reliant on the dijk’s output.

North of the U.S. border, the mining craze has also caught on, with CBC News reporting how one duo have waterput their life savings into hardware. The pair have invested U.S. $77,000 te Bitmain miners, 11 of which are installed. More are on their way. The hubby wasgoed quoted spil telling:

If I wasgoed looking for get-rich-quick, I would’ve just bought bitcoin, and just sat there and crossed my fingers – and that would be truly taking a chance. I wasgoed looking for something that wasgoed a little bit more stable.

History Repeats

Should bitcoin suffer a major correction, however, mining may become unprofitable to small-scale operations. But so long spil the price holds, entrepreneurs will proceed to be lured ter their droves. Cheap hydro power ter Canada and Washington State may have met their match ter Siberia, where mining costs just Three or Four cents vanaf KWh, prompting a local television station to proclaim that cryptocurrency fever has swept through the Russian outpost. The original Californian gold rush peaked ter 1852 after gold reserves became so scarce that the precious resource wasgoed only recoverable using specialist equipment. When the bitcoin mining gold rush dies down, it will be for much the same reasons.

Do you think small-scale bitcoin mining is sustainable? Let us know ter the comments section below.